


I Don't Think I Could Do Two

by alexygalaxy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Post-Campaign 1 (Critical Role), did not take major character death cuz no one dies theyre just all already dead, dont read this one after midnight. just., itll be better that way, its a vax reaping fic, its depressing as fuck idk what to tell you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21730333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexygalaxy/pseuds/alexygalaxy
Summary: The road between life and death exists for as long as its inhabitants care to walk it, and Vax wants to walk it with Keyleth as long as he possibly can.
Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Raven Queen (Dungeons & Dragons) & Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Vax'ildan & Vox Machina
Comments: 22
Kudos: 77





	I Don't Think I Could Do Two

**Author's Note:**

> I'm 4 episodes from the end of campaign 1. I have been listening to my [post-campaign vaxleth playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3whbNCHTzX2pat7o2aJKo5) on repeat for days. I just took a long ass shower and this is where my brain went. I'm sorry. But I hope it's nice. 
> 
> (title is pulled from "Afterlife" by Nothing But Thieves. it's on the playlist.)

The road between life and death exists for as long as its inhabitants care to walk it. 

When a soul is gathered into Vax’s careful, lifeless hands, carried beyond the boundary to the plane of the living, and released from his grasp, a road appears. It is never the same road. It can be a winding forest trail, a cobbled street, a beaten path through tall prairie grass. A hallway in the house the soul grew up in. The soul, once set down, is allowed to walk the path with Vax as their guide, until they grow weary of walking, and then the gate to the Astral Sea is there and Vax ushers them through to their final rest. Sometimes the walking lasts a day, sometimes but a few seconds. Vax has found it usually takes a couple hours. 

Souls like to talk, is the thing. And if you’re talking to someone who listens, you tend to forget where your feet are stepping and how long they have been stepping there, until you’ve run out of things to say. Then you come back to your surroundings and the ache in your feet sets in quick, and you’ve got no more stories to tell, so you decide a rest might not be so bad after all. And the rest arrives.

Vax has heard a lot of stories. 

Vax has walked with a lot of souls. 

He is used to the routine by now. He feels a tugging in the back of his mind, one of the threads of fate growing taut as it shortens to its end. He closes his eyes and whispers words in Celestial, and he is pulled between the realms. He holds his arms out and a soul tumbles into them. He waits a minute, and then he whispers a few more words and they reach the road to the gate.

On rare occasion, the soul falls through his fingers and the tugging in his mind dissipates. He always bids the soul farewell as it drops. He knows he may be meeting it again, in whatever a deathless, timeless construct such as himself could constitute as “a short while”. He goes back to Her, and waits for the next one.

* * *

The Raven Queen warned him when a few certain threads were coming to their ends. It was the least She could do really, for having pulled him away from them so soon. Besides, She saw the smile that crossed his lips as he breathed out the words to go collect them. Her Champion deserved a few moments of peace within eternity. He is grateful to Her, that She lets him know when he is taking one of them.

Every member of Vox Machina that Vax had walked to the gate took at least three days. 

There were so many stories for them to tell, so many details for him to soak up, so little time for him to gaze on their faces again, and they on his. So many questions for him to ask, some even, for him to answer. Rarely were people brave enough to ask things of death, but when you’d seen death’s bare asscheeks, his presence did not seem nearly as intimidating.

Vax walked slow, dragging his feet, as if it was his choice at all when the gate would appear. Some of his friends matched the slowness of his pace more than others. All of them reached for him at the end, their incorporeal hands stretching towards his form. They would grasp at his hand, or his arm, or his face, and they would never connect, as he was anchored to this in-between existence while they were already in the process of passing out of it. It did not keep him from reaching back, every time. 

* * *

If Vax still had a heart in his chest, it would have stopped beating when She spoke to him with the words

**_It is time, my Champion.  
_ _After all this time, her thread is finally growing short.  
Would you like to fetch her?_ **

Vax does not need to answer Her, he knows that She knows what he is thinking. But the words leave his lips anyways. Breathless, excited. He has been waiting so long to see her again, and now, that wait is nearly over.

_Yes, my Queen. Yes, yes I would._

  
  


* * *

Vax knows that souls have no weight, but he swears that when the soul of Keyleth falls into his arms, she is heavy enough to pull him all the way down to mortality again, for just a minute. Then the words are leaving his lips, and they are on the mountain path that lead to the house they shared in Zephrah. 

Vax, she says. 

_Kiki._

I missed you.

_I know. As did I_. 

I missed everyone.

_I saw them._

She smiles. I expected you would have, she tells him. 

_Walk with me. Tell me everything. Every stupid little detail, Kik. I want to hear it all, in your voice._

Gosh, Vax. Where do I start? she asks.

_Anywhere you like._

* * *

Walking a road that he knows makes the illusion especially strange for Vax. When the road is somewhere he does not know, he can ignore the fact that it does not move with the steps like it is supposed to. But this is a road he has walked before, and he knows how many footfalls lie between here and there, and for every step he and Keyleth take more than that, he cannot help but wonder whether this one is the last one. It never is. But the next one might be.

As the first day draws to a close, and Keyleth’s meandering footsteps have morphed into an exhausted drag, Vax begins to panic. He waited so long for her, this cannot be it. He needs more than this, more time, please, anything. His sister took five days, his love should not be less than one. 

Vax, she mumbles, her head dropping onto his shoulder with a heaviness his body should not have been able to feel. I’m tired. Carry me. 

Vax opens his arms, and by Her grace, Keyleth is able to crawl into them. He thanks Her with every atom he holds claim over that he can hold her, and he keeps walking. He has not been able to touch a soul already on the road like this before, but he still thinks Keyleth’s soul is warmer than any other.

Don’t hit me with your spikes, she mutters.

Vax chuckles. His arm is indeed covered in growth, bony spires sprouting from some source beneath his clothes. When he last saw her, they trailed a little down his shoulder and up his neck. Now, they have wrapped all the way down his arm, enclosing him nearly in a case of bone. They have curled around his shoulder, across his back, and into the wings. They move, so as not to shatter when he beats them. They have wound up through his scalp and down through his still-long hair. He does not know where they stem from. Gods do not need to take their clothes off - _cannot_ take their clothes off, as he found out. So he has not had a chance to look and see their source.

_Not to worry, love. I will not hurt you._  
  


Mhhm. She nestles into his arm, eyes already closing.

_Good night._

Vax times his steps to match her breath. Right foot inhale, left foot exhale. She sleeps soundly, so he moves slow, but constant towards the house that has not gotten any closer.

_Thank you_ , he whispers to Her, if She can hear. 

**_You are welcome, Champion. I do not have many boons left to give you, but this yet is one.  
I know you will cherish it_.**

_You are right._

**_I know I am.  
I remember what it is like to feel love, too.  
I walked her to the gate like this, centuries ago. We took a while.  
Take your time, my Vax’ildan. I can spare your presence for a little longer._ **

_I will. Thank you._

  
  


* * *

  
  


Keyleth wakes in the morning, if anything is morning on a timeless, unmoving road to the other side of death.

Mm, mornin’, she says. 

_Good morning._

Can I get down?

_Certainly_.

He lets her down gently, her legs swinging down to reach the earth as she figures out Vax’s stride to match. The weight leaves his arms, and Vax aches a bit, from the emptiness. The sound of her voice distracts him soon enough, as does the hand that passes through when she tries to slide it into his.

* * *

  
  


On the third night of carrying Keyleth along the same stretch of path he has always been on, he calls to Her again.

Don’t stop moving, Keyleth had said, looking up at him with softness and weariness on her face. I wanna wake up in your arms again, not in the Astral whatever. 

_Would not dream of it, Kiki._

Good.

_Is this the last time,_ Vax asks Her. _Is this a goodbye, in the way that the one before this was not really a goodbye. Or will I walk this road to her, one day?_

**_You too, can pass through the gate, if you so desire._ **

_When?_

**_That I cannot tell you, my Champion. It all depends._ **

_On what,_ he asks Her, with a temper in his voice he has not had with Her in a very long time.

**_Who next bears your burden._ **

**_I require a Champion at my side, Vax’ildan._ **

**_When one like you is ready to serve the position you now hold, you too can take your rest._ **

**_But I know not how long that will take. It may be quite a while._ **

_I have gotten good at waiting._

**_That you have._ **

_I will wait._

**_I know you will._ **

_I know you know._

  
  


* * *

  
  


Vax has stopped recognizing the names in Keyleth’s stories. He stopped about a day and a half ago. He still loves them, soaks them in like they are the last drops of water he will ever drink, or the last ray of sun he will ever feel on his skin, though he has long since forgotten what either of those things are like to experience. But he does not know the people of who she speaks, and it worries him, because he can tell that she is starting to skip over details now. 

She still rambles, as he knows she is wont to do, but it is a concise kind of rambling. He can tell that she does not want to bog him down with details he does not care for, does not know anything about. What he would not have given to care about them.

The time is always too short.

He lost the time he would have to care about the mundanity of Ashari politics, and the changes of fashion that made her the least cool ambassador on Tal’Dorei. About the plants she learned to grow. About the way she finally started liking the smell of fire, after a few hundred years. The way the stars moved ever so slightly in the sky from the beginning of her life to the end of it. 

He was losing time now, as her stories shortened, and sped up, and he knew that she too would reach the part where her tales ran out and she grew weary. 

When Keyleth crawls into his arms to sleep again, he lets out a sigh he does not think his breathless lungs could have held.

 _Not yet_ , he says to no one. _At least one more night._

* * *

  
  


_My Queen._

**_Yes, my Champion._ **

_Do you wish to walk this road, too?_

**_Oh, my Vax’ildan._ **

**_You have always been one to ask questions that no one wants to answer._ **

_Will you answer?_

  
  
  
  
  


**_Yes._ **

**_I wish to walk this road, just as you do, and just as so many who do, do not._ **

**_I have faces I would like to see again._ **

**_I have woes I would like to let rest._ **

_Why have you not?_

**_Is it not obvious? Who would take my place?_ **

_One of your servants. A Champion._

**_Vax’ildan -_ **

_I could._ He falters. _I could walk you. Like I have every other soul. I could let you pass, and take your crown._

She smiles, and Vax feels it, without seeing Her. 

**_My Vax’ildan. You have always had a selfless heart._ **

**_I chose this fate to bear when I ascended. I would not pass it on to another._ **

**_I would like to walk this road, it is true. But there will be another who will walk me down it._ **

**_One who is not as impatient as you to cross it as well._ **

_I am very patient, my Queen._

**_You are. And yet, in this case, you are not._ **

_I have had so little time._

**_I know._ **

_I spent a lifetime without them, without her. Waiting. I was so patient._

**_I know._ **

_I do not think I can do two._

**_You can._ **

**_You will._ **

_I do not want to._

**_It will be nothing in comparison to the eternity you will have, once you have crossed over._ **

_I trust you. And I will wait. But it may kill me._

**_You know that is impossible._ **

_Yes, I know._

**_You are funny, sometimes, my Champion._ **

_Turning immortal will do that to you._

The laughter of a god is enough to rattle Vax’s body.

**_You will see her soon. I promise you that. It will not be long._ **

_That will not make it easier, you know that._

**_I do._ **

_I am sorry._

**_Do not be sorry, my Champion._ **

**_Love is a boon, not a curse._ **

**_I knew this when I fell into it, and when I walked away from it._ **

**_I will see her, someday. As will you._ **

  
  


_As will I._

**_As will you._ **

_I think she is waking._

**_Then let her wake. I will see you soon, my Champion._ **

  
  
  


* * *

_I talked to Her last night._

About?

_She was in love once._

Makes sense, given that She was alive once, and all.

_She said I will not have to leave you at the gate._

Oh?

_Well, I will this time. But She will let me pass, as well. In time. When a new champion takes my place._

Oh.

_I will find you, when I do._

I don’t doubt it, Vax.

_I would hope you would not, Kiki._

I wish I could kiss you right now.

_Settle for telling me more stories._

Alright.

* * *

  
  


On the seventh night, when Keyleth’s feet begin to drag, Vax opens his arms. Keyleth reaches out her own to stop him.

_Kiki. Kiki, no._

It’s time.

_I can carry you forever. I am not tired, I do not get tired. I can keep going. I can -_

Vax, you don’t need to. She told you that this one is not a goodbye forever.

_It might be goodbye for a lifetime._

I know. I’m ready.

_Do not make me start this again, my love. We have barely had any time._

You know, Vax, you’d think that living outside of time would make you feel like everything is shorter. But I think it’s making you feel like everything is longer. I know you had to wait for me. I had to wait for you too. And it hurt, by the gods it hurt. I need you to know that, that it hurt to be apart from you. But we’re both good at walking through pain. 

Keyleth leans into Vax’s side, and he puts both arms around her desperately, drawing her to his chest. She clings back with a similar fervor.

She needs you, Vax. You can’t walk with me forever. And the longer we take, the harder it will be for me to step through that gate and wait again. 

Vax takes a long time to answer.

_I know._

I don’t want to leave you, Vax.

_I know._

But your arms must be getting tired.

_They are._

Then let them rest.

_Kiki. I love you._

I love you too, Vax.

_Soon._

Soon. Look for a new champion fast, okay.

_The fastest._

Pity Vex took your boots of haste.

Vax smiles. _Say hello to her for me._

Of course.

Keyleth takes a deep, shaky breath. Vax’s airless lungs breathe in with her. She reaches a hand up to touch his face, and he reaches his hand up to grab onto hers, and thank Her, this touch is one that can be felt. No more words are said. She turns, with tears in her eyes, and walks into the home they once shared.

* * *

The road between life and death exists for as long as its inhabitants care to walk it, and Vax thinks that he walks the road in record time. His Queen is there, hand on his shoulder, as he moves towards the gate. He does not waste time talking, there is nothing to say that his Queen does not already know. Less than thirty seconds and he is there, at the gate. There are so many faces he is excited to see.

_Thank you._

**_Of course, my Vax’ildan._ **

_I will see you again, yes? Through the gate?_

**_Eventually._ **

_Farewell, then. It has been an honor to serve you._

And before She has a chance to answer him, he is on the other side of the gate, after two lifetimes, with the rest of them. It feels so good to hold them in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. im just as emo about it as you are.
> 
> im [cadykeus-clay](https://cadykeus-clay.tumblr.com) on tumblr if u wanna talk to me there!!


End file.
